T  S  - 


The  Church 

and 

International  Peace 


A  Series  of  Papers  by  the  Trustees  of 
THE  CHURCH  PEACE  UNION 

VII 

Might  or  Meekness 

by 

Rev.  William  Pierson  Merrill,  D.D. 


THE  CHURCH  PEACE  UNION 
70  Fifth  Avenue 


NEW  YORK 


I  The  Church  and  International  Peace 

]  A  uniform  series  of  papers  by  the  Trustees  of  The 
Church  Peace  Union,  treating  the  problems  of  war  and 
peace  from  the  point  of  view  of  religion,  and  especially 
emphasizing  the  message  the  Church  should  have  for  the 
world  in  this  time  of  war. 


ALREADY  PUBLISHED 

1.  The  Cause  of  the  War,  by  Rev.  Charles  E.  Jefferson,  D.D. 

2.  The  Midnight  Cry,  by  Rt.  Rev.  David  H.  Greer,  D.D. 

3.  The  Scourge  of  Militarism,  by  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie,  D.D. 

4.  Europe’s  War,  America’s  Warning,  by  Rev.  Charles  S.  Mac- 

farland,  Ph.D. 

5.  The  Way  to  Disarm,  by  Hamilton  Holt,  LL.D. 

6.  The  Church’s  Mission  as  to  War  and  Peace,  by  Junius  B. 

Remensnyder,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

7.  Might  or  Meekness,  by  Rev.  William  Pierson  Merrill,  D.D. 


IN  PREPARATION 

1.  After  the  War— What?  by  Rev.  Francis  E.  Clark,  D.D. 

2.  The  Church  and  the  Ideal,  by  Rt.  Rev.  William  Lawrence,  D.D. 

3.  The  United  Church  and  the  Terms  of  Peace,  by  Rev.  Frederick 

(  Lynch,  D.D. 

4.  Adequate  Armaments,  by  Prof.  William  I.  Hull 


Might  or  Meekness 

By  Rev.  William  Pierson  Merrill,  D.D. 

“As  for  the  mighty  man,  he  had  the  earth.”  > 

Job  22: 8. 

“The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth.” 

Psalm  37: 11. 

The  history  of  mankind  is  the  story  of  unceasing  strife 
between  ideals.  Down  through  the  ages  they  come  in  pairs, 
a  positive  and  a  negative,  a  true  and  a  false,  or  a  good  and  a 
better,  fighting  their  way  along  through  the  years,  the  sold 
of  mankind  their  prize.  It  is  seldom  that  either  side  win 
a  decisive  victory.  After  every  defeat,  the  vanquished  spring, 
up  and  begins  to  fight  again.  After  all  there  is  much  that  fit; 
the  facts  of  life  in  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Persia’ 
theology, — that  life  is  an  eternal  conflict  between  opposim 
principles,  between  the  darkness  and  the  light. 

One  can  readily  trace  through  the  books  of  the  Bible 
the  course  of  many  of  these  conflicts  between  ideals.  But 
few  of  them  are  more  clear  or  central  than  is  the  opposition 
between  the  two  ideals  of  might  and  meekness.  “As  for  tlie 
mighty  man,  he  had  the  earth.”  “The  meek  shall  inherit 
the  earth.”  The  results  of  the  one  policy  and  of  the  other' 
are  made  clear  in  the  words  that  follow  these  two  texts.  We 
see  the  mighty  man  standing  erect,  towering  triumphant. 
While  widows  and  fatherless  mourn  and  suffer,  he  glories  in 
the  terror  created  by  his  splendid  strength.  But  the  meek 
“delights  himself  in  the  abundance  of  peace,”  which  blesses 
him  and  the  land  which  he  has  inherited. 

The  two  ideals  are  two  strongly  contrasting  answers, 
to  one  of  the  great  questions  of  every  man.  How  can  I 
succeed?  What  is  the  real  secret  and  way  of  victory?  What 
path  leads  most  surely  to  the  things  worth  while?  It  is  the 


3 


great  practical  question  for  every  man,  for  every  nation, 
for  the  whole  race. 

Naturally  the  first  answer  to  occur  to  a  man,  or  to  the 
race,  is  “might.”  You  must  make  your  way  by  force.  If 
you  want  the  good  things  of  life,  you  must  be  strong  enough 
to  take  them,  and  then  strong  enough  to  keep  them.  The 
ultimate  arbiter  is  force.  You  may  not  admire  force  very 
much.  You  may  think  him  a  clumsy  brute.  But  you  must 
call  him  in,  and  rely  on  him,  or  you  will  fail.  It  is  the 
mighty  man  who  gets  the  earth.  Life  is  a  fierce  struggle,  with 
scant  place  or  pity  for  weaklings.  Let  the  meek  go  to  the 
wall,  while  the  strong  wrestle  and  fight  out  in  the  open  for 
the  mastery  which  comes  ultimately  only  to  the  mighty. 

It  should  not  be  cause  for  wonder  that  the  Hebrew  race 
developed  as  its  first  ideal  this  of  the  mighty  man.  After 
all  these  ages  of  advance,  children  still  love  to  hear  of  feats 
of  strength,  of  wars  and  victories,  and  deeds  of  daring.  It 
is  not  strange  if  in  the  dim  days  of  antiquity  Hebrew  mothers 
found  their  children  eager  for  tales  of  Samson,  the  man  of 
amazing  might,  and  of  David,  the  brilliant  captain.  So,  when, 
urged  on  by  a  mysterious  silent  power  in  the  soul,  Hebrew 
thinkers  began  to  formulate  an  ideal,  a  human  yet  divine 
figure  who  should,  in  the  future,  bring  the  golden  age,  the 
sum  of  all  blessings,  to  Israel  and  the  world,  it  was  natural 
that  that  figure  first  appeared  “glorious  in  strength,”  “travel¬ 
ling  in  the  greatness  of  his  might,”  clad  in  radiant  armor, 
holding  for  a  sceptre  a  rod  of  iron  with  which  to  dash  the 
nations  in  pieces,  a  warrior  filling  the  valleys  with  the  dead 
bodies  of  his  foes,  making  Israel  irresistible  in  might,  and 
causing  all  other  nations  to  bow  before  the  chosen  race,  glad 
to  be  the  servants  of  the  nation  whose  Lord  was  the  Mighty 
One  of  Jacob. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  for  those  who  have,  irom  earliest 
childhood,  read  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  the  beauty  of  Jesus, 
who,  caught  by  the  glory  of  goodness  in  His  face,  have  easily 
transferred  all  ancient  scriptural  ideals  to  the  spiritual 
King  and  His  spiritual  Kingdom,  it  is  difficult  for  us,  I 


4 


say,  to  appreciate  how  much  there  is  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  of  the  “religion  of  valor,”  the  glorification  of  might, 
the  deification  of  power.  We  read  the  words,  “Who 
is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah,”  and  we  think  of  the  Lamb  slain  for  sinners.  His 
garments  dyed  with  his  own  blood.  We  have  a  right  so  to 
use  the  words,  we  are  reading  the  deeper  mind  of  the  Spirit; 
but  we  forget  that  the  men  who  first  read  the  words,  before 
the  Christ-light  had  come  into  the  world,  saw  in  them  the 
picture  of  a  hero,  coming  back  in  triumph  from  a  bloody 
victory  over  Edom,  the  ancient  foe  of  Judah.  It  is  the  blood 
of  Israel’s  enemies  that  stains  his  garments.  “I  trod  them 
in  my  anger,  and  trampled  them  in  my  wrath,”  he  cries. 
“And  their  lifeblood  is  sprinkled  upon  my  garments.  Eor  the 
day  of  vengeance  was  in  my  heart,  and  my  wrath  upheld  me. 
And  I  trod  down  the  peoples  in  mine  anger,  and  I  poured 
out  their  lifeblood  upon  the  earth.” 

The  shadow  of  the  mighty  man  looms  large  and  dark 
across  the  Old  Testament.  True,  he  is  always  much  more 
than  mighty.  He  is  the  champion  of  the  weak,  he  is  the 
upholder  of  righteousness ;  his  vengeance  falls  on  the  oppres¬ 
sor  and  the  tyrant;  he  is  a  noble  figure,  the  incarnation  of 
the  might  and  of  the  wrath  of  God.  But  he  is  the  mighty  man„ 
whose  appeal  is  to  force  as  ultimate  arbiter.  That  is  the 
Messiah,  the  King,  the  hero,  for  whom  the  ancient  people 
of  God  eagerly  looked. 

But  the  wonder  of  the  Old  Testament  is  the  appear¬ 
ance  there  of  another  ideal,  that  of  the  meek.  It  is  not 
found  so  early,  save  in  faint  suggestion.  Moses,  mighty 
master  that  he  was,  was  greatest,  the  Hebrews  said,  in  his 
self-mastery;  his  noblest  praise  was  as  the  meekest  of  men. 
Yet  this  ideal  of  the  meek  as  the  greatest,  the  most  heroic, 
the  most  desirable  of  men,  did  not  take  definite  shape,  or 
grow  to  where  it  might  seriously  dispute  with  the  ideal  of 
the  mighty  the  right  to  the  chief  place,  until  late  in  Hebrew 
history.  It  was  when  the  people  of  God  had  been  crushedi 
broken,  dragged  away  from  their  homeland,  their  dreams  of 


5 


empire  and  wealth  and  national  glory  dissipated,  that  a  voice 
began  to  make  itself  heard,  as  it  proclaimed  the  new  ideal, 
that  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord.  In  those  wonderful  chapters 
found  in  the  latter  part  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  there  is  set 
before  us  what  we  may  venture  to  call  the  greatest  idea  that 
ever  came  into  the  mind  of  man,  the  thought  that  the  truly 
great  man  is  not  the  mighty  but  the  meek,  that  the  real  hero 
is  not  the  King  but  the  Servant,  that  the  noblest  work  is  not 
to  set  foot  upon  men’s  prostrate  bodies,  but  to  put  your  strong 
arms  under  their  weakness  and  lift  them  up,  that  the  highest 
ideal  is  not  mightiness,  but  meekness. 

Just  as  we  needed  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  Hebrew 
ideal  of  might  was  not  mere  ruthlessness,  but  was  ennobled 
by  righteous  aims,  and  high  resolves;  so  we  need  to  remem¬ 
ber  that  meekness  is  not  weakness ;  that  the  hero  of  the  latter 
Isaiah  is  not  a  silly,  helpless  sheep ;  though  he  is  led  as  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter,  he  goes  thus  quietly  because  of  strength 
and  self-control,  not  through  weakness  and  fear.  He  is  as 
nighty  as  the  King  of  the  earlier  dreams;  yes,  mightier,  for 
le  is  strong  enough  to  make  his  majesty  more  glorious 
through  humility  and  sacrifice. 

This  “Servant  of  the  Lord,”  who  appears  as  the  ideal 
of  the  later  Hebrew  literature,  is  a  servant,  but  he  is  not 
servile.  He  does  not  bow  before  men;  he  makes  men  bow 
before  the  majesty  of  goodness.  An  unfortunate  atmosphere 
has  gathered  about  that  word  “meek,”  which  makes  it  far 
from  attractive  to  a  strong  man.  But  there  seems  to  be  no 
other  word;  we  must  use  it,  however,  with  the  perpetual  re¬ 
minder  that  meekness  and  masterfulness  are  not  inconsistent; 
that  only  a  strong  man  can  be  truly  meek,  and  only  a  meek 
man  dare  put  forth  his  strength ;  that  the  meekness  to  which 
we  are  called  in  the  Bible  is  not  a  weakness,  but  a  passion. 
Only  a  great-hearted  man  can  afford  to  be  meek.  And  for 
such  a  man  meekness  is  the  sure  way  to  mastery.  The  truly 
meek  man  is  the  man  who  forgets  himself  in  a  passion  of 
surrender  to  a  great  ideal. 

So  appeared  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hebrews  (and 

6 


of  the  Christian  world),  these  two  strangely  contrasting  ideals 
of  the  mighty  and  the  meek,  the  King  and  the  Servant;  the 
two  ways  of  vrinning,  through  power  and  through  sacrifice; 
the  two  crowns,  of  splendor  and  of  humility.  Each  was  in  thd 
Word  of  God.  The  upholder  of  the  one  as  of  the  other 
could  appeal  to  the  Bible  to  support  his  view  And  men 
have  always  appealed  to  the  Bible  in  justification  of  their 
advocacy  of  the  one  view  as  of  the  other.  The  glamour  of 
royalty,  of  the  warrior,  of  strength  that  will  have  its  way,  has 
never  faded;  the  old  ideal  of  the  mighty  man  as  the  Messiah 
of  God  has  always  had  its  believers. 

How  the  two  ideals  have  struggled  in  the  life  of  the 
church!  Men  have  said.  If  the  church  of  Ghrist  is  to  have 
real  power  over  men,  it  must  be  placed  above  kings  and 
emperors  and  nations  by  possessing  might  superior  to  theirs. 
Conscientious  men  they  were  and  are,  many  of  them,  these 
who  would  make  the  church  great  through  making  it  mighty. 
They  find  in  the  Bible  promises  and  prophecies  and  dreams 
which  seem  to  justify  the  belief  that  the  way  to  success  for 
God’s  church  lies  through  gaining  and  asserting  might  and 
mastery. 

If  the  church  can  thus  readily  be  led  into  the  worship  of 
might,  into  estimating  as  her  true  resources  wealth  and  power 
and  fame,  can  we  wonder  that  that  ideal  of  the  mighty  man 
still  controls  so  largely  the  political  and  commercial  life  of  the 
race?  Can  we  wonder  if  in  their  hearts  many  believe  that 
the  way  to  success  is  through  the  assertion  of  might?  Is  it  not 
possible  for  one  to  justify  such  a  conviction  by  pointing  to 
the  Bible  and  saying,  “Here  is  that  very  ideal.  Granted  that 
the  ideal  of  meekness  is  here,  so  is  the  ideal  of  might.  The 
Bible  is  back  of  me  when  I  say  that  the  way  to  inherit  the 
earth,  the  way  to  be  safe  and  prosperous,  the  way  to  win  for 
mankind  a  better  future,  is  the  way  of  might,  righteous, 
honorable,  yet,  in  the  last  analysis,  victorious  because  possess¬ 
ing  adequate  force.” 

But  those  who  thus  defend  the  religion  of  might  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  sanctioned  in  the  Word  of  God,  overlook  one 


7 


significant  and  decisive  fact,  the  fact  of  supreme  meaning  for 
all  Christians.  It  is  the  fact  that  Jesus  chose,  definitely, 
decisively,  the  one  ideal,  and  rejected,  definitely,  decisively, 
the  other.  And  wherever  Jesus  has  chosen,  the  Christian  has 
no  choice. 

Can  anyone  who  knows  even  slightly  the  life  and  spirit 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  doubt  that  He  chose  the  ideal  of  meek¬ 
ness,  not  that  of  might?  He  grew  up  in  the  presence  of  the 
two  great  ideals  of  the  Old  Testament.  He  knew  His  Bible. 
There  in  the  first  part  of  Isaiah,  as  in  many  other  places,  stood 
out  before  Him  in  brave  and  noble  form,  the  ideal  of  the 
mighty  warrior,  the  hero  who  should  establish  peace  and 
justice  by  force — the  king  on  his  war  horse.  Ble  read  of 
David,  and  of  the  Maccabees,  of  the  glorious  days  of  pros¬ 
perity  when  these  mighty  men  were  in  power.  He  climbed 
the  hills  back  of  Nazareth,  and  looked  out  over  the  plain  of 
Megiddo,  wjiere  Barak  fought  with  Sisera,  where  again  and 
again  the  armies  of  the  Lord  had  clashed  with  the  hosts  of 
the  heathen.  Down  below  flowed  the  brook  Kishon,  where 
Elijah,  in  grim  determination  to  uphold  the  right,  had  slain 
the  four  hundred  prophets  of  Baal.  As  He  looked.  He  saw 
cohorts  of  Roman  soldiers  marching  across  the  plain.  He 
knew  well  how  the  men  of  His  nation  hated  the  presence  and 
power  of  those  representatives  of  the  tyranny  of  Rome,  how, 
in  the  synagogues  and  in  their  private  conversations,  the  men 
of  Israel  read  with  fierce  conviction  the  words  in  which  the 
Old  Testament  predicted  the  coming  of  a  Messiah  who  should 
set  Israel  free  from  its  enemies,  and  fight  out  the  battle  of  the 
Lord.  There  is  no  question  that  the  ideal  of  the  mighty  man, 
the  Messiah  who  should  be  a  great  king,  was  very  forcibly 
presented  to  the  mind  of  the  young  Jesus,  and  kept  before 
Him  in  a  thousand  ways.  Had  not  His  mother,  in  her  early 
joy  that  she  was  to  give  birth  to  the  Messiah,  recalled  the 
promises  of  One  who  should  “show  strength  with  his  arm?” 
Had  not  the  old  priest,  in  his  hymn  of  praise,  given  thanks 
for  the  coming  of  One  whose  mission  it  should  be  to  bring 
“salvation  from  our  enemies,  and  from  the  hand  of  all  that 


8 


hate  us?”  On  every  hand  Jesus,  saw  evidence  that  this  ideal, 
this  hope,  of  the  mighty  man  filled  the  expectations  of  the 
people. 

But  there  was  a  Spirit  in  our  Lord  which  came  not  from 
His  environment,  but  directly  from  God.  And  reading  His 
Bible  for  himself — as  there  is  plain  evidence  that  He  did — 
he  found  there  another  ideal.  Few  were  thinking  or  speaking 
of  it  in  that  day.  It  lay  forgotten  in  the  literature  of  the  exile. 
To  us  Christians  there  is  no  part  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
is  so  definitely  Messianic  as  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  that  men  could  ever  have  failed 
to  see  that  it  looked  forward  to  the  Ideal  Man,  the  Messiah, 
the  Chosen  of  the  Lord.  But  no  one  before  Christ  came 
thought  of  that  figure  of  the  suffering  and  meek  Servant  of 
the  Lord  as  a  picture  of  the  Messiah.  Jewish  rabbis  debated 
who  this  Servant  might  be.  Some  saw  in  him  simply  a 
picture  of  Israel,  despised  among  the  nations,  yet  bearing  the 
secret  of  the  world’s  salvation  in  his  faith.  Others  thought 
that  the  Servant  might  be  a  helper  and  companion  of  Messiah 
when  He  should  come. 

But  Jesus,  the  lad  in  Nazareth,  knowing  Himself  to  be 
the  chosen  of  the  Lord,  the  conviction  growing  quietly  stronger 
in  His  heart,  looked  at  the  two  contrasting  ideals  of  might 
and  meekness  and  said,  “This,  not  that,  is  the  nobler.  This, 
not  that,  is  what  God  wants  me  to  fulfill.”  And  He  made  the 
choice,  irrevocable,  uncompromising,  to  be  followed  without 
a  shadow  of  wavering.  The  Messiah  must  be  the  Servant, 
not  the  King ;  Fie  must  win  His  way,  and  establish  God’s  reign, 
not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  the  spirit  of  meekness 
and  of  sacrifice. 

Here  again  let  us  say  to  our  souls,  forcibly  and  insistently, 
that  the  “meekness”  and  “lowliness”  of  Jesus  was  as  far  as 
possible  from  weakness  or  meanness  of  spirit.  There  was 
leadership  in  Jesus,  finer  and  stronger  mastery  of  men  than 
Napoleon  ever  exerted.  Meekness  is  spiritual  might.  Christ 
did  push  his  teaching  to  extremes  at  times,  telling  us  never 
to  resist  evil,  and  that  to  the  one  who  smites  on  the  one  cheek 


9 


we  should  turn  the  other  also.  But  we  must  remember  that 
Christ  is  always  giving  us  ideals,  not  rules;  and  that  when¬ 
ever  we  stiffen  any  one  of  His  ideals  into  a  rigid  rule,  we 
freeze  the  life  out  of  it.  His  ideals  are  for  the  long  future 
also,  and,  while  holding  them  firmly,  we  must  move  toward 
them  as  we  can.  There  is  abundant  evidence  that  He  calls 
His  followers  to  show  a  temper  heroic,  stern,  indomitable.  It 
is  not  that  He  has  no  use  for  steel,  it  is  that  He  has  better 
use  for  it  than  as  a  servant  of  self-interest  and  personal  or 
racial  passion.  There  was  nothing  soft  in  Christ’s  meekness, 
no  reluctance  to  stand  unflinchingly  for  righteousness.  He 
never  allowed  anyone  or  anything  to  hinder  or  thwart  His 
heroic  determination  to  do  the  will  of  God,  though  all  the 
world  stood  in  the  way.  His  voice  is  like  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet  far  oftener  than  “like  bells  at  evening  pealing.”  He 
calls  us,  as  Peter  says,  “by  His  glory  and  manliness.”  Even 
the  command  about  turning  the  other  cheek  is  not  a  counsel 
of  cowardice.  He  says,  in  effect,  “Give  yourself  to  the  will 
of  God  so  unreservedly,  so  passionately  that  you  will  go  on, 
unmindful  of  the  blows  that  fall  upon  you;  if  a  man  strikes 
you,  let  him  hit  you  again ;  you  cannot  afford  to  stop  for  little 
personal  quarrels;  go  on  and  do  the  will  of  God.”  To  be 
meek  as  Jesus  was  demands  immeasurably  greater  strength 
than  any  exhibition  of  mere  might. 

Dramatically  that  decision  of  Jesus  to  follow  meekness 
rather  than  might  is  set  before  us  in  the  opening  of  the  Gospel 
story.  Baptized  as  a  sign  that  His  mission  is  begun.  He  is 
driven  by  the  Spirit  into  the  desert  to  be  tempted.  Conscious 
of  great  powers,  knowing  that  He  could  master  men  and  make 
them  do  His  bidding.  He  is  shown  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  their  glory,  but  only  to  make  the  final  identification  of 
might  with  Satan  rather  than  with  God,  and  to  go  down  from 
the  mountain  to  win  His  way  and  God’s  way  through  suffering 
and  extreme  sacrifice.  Consistently  through  life  and  teaching 
does  our  Lord  uphold  the  ideal  of  meekness,  and  reject  the 
ideal  of  might.  Out  of  the  very  few  words  He  adopts  from 
the  Old  Testament,  incorporating  them  into  His  Gospel,  He 


lO 


sets  in  the  place  of  honor  among  the  Beatitudes  this  ancient 
text,  “The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth.”  It  is  impossible  for 
anyone  seriously  to  question  the  assertion  that  Jesus  definitely 
and  positively  ranged  Himself  on  the  side  of  the  ideaT  of 
meekness  as  opposed  to  the  ideal  of  might.  He  set  the  seal 
of  God’s  approval  on  the  Servant,  not  on  the  King,  as  the  ideal 
man.  “I  am  among  you  as  one  that  serveth.”  “The  kings  of 
the  Gentiles  lord  it  over  them.  But  it  shall  not  be  so  among 
you.  But  he  that  would  be  great  among  you,  let  him  become 
your  servant.”  Could  there  be  a  more  solemn  and  decisive 
seal  to  this  truth  than  that  scene  where  our  Lord,  “knowing 
that  the  Father  had  given  all  things  into  His  hands,  and  that 
He  came  from  God  and  was  going  to  God,”  rose  and  washed 
the  disciples’  feet?  Once  for  all  in  that  scene  the  ideal  of  the 
mighty  man  was  disowned,  and  that  of  the  servant  enthroned. 

If  Christianity  means  anything  practical,  then  this  choice 
of  Jesus  makes  it  obligatory  for  Christians  to  choose  as  He 
did.  Following  Him  becomes  a  meaningless  phrase  unless, 
when  His  decision  is  so  clear,  we  decide  to  stand  with  Him. 

Yet,  my  friends,  in  all  the  dark  mass  of  un-Christian 
characteristics  of  Christian  people  is  there  one  place  where 
the  stinging  question  of  Emerson  strikes  us  with  more 
deserved  rebuke,  “Every  Stoic  was  a  Stoic ;  but  in  Christen¬ 
dom  where  is  the  Christian  ?”  A  strong  and  wise  man  who  has 
just  returned  from  Europe,  where  with  keen  insight  he  judged 
the  conditions  of  life,  says  that  in  every  nation  the  chief 
bulwark  of  the  war  party  is  the  church.  There  are  many  pro¬ 
fessing  Christians  whose  real  religion  is  the  religion  of  valor. 
Many  a  man,  if  he  should  let  the  faith  of  his  heart  come  to 
the  light,  would  echo  the  words  of  Nietzsche :  “It  has  been 
said  by  them  of  old  time.  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall 
inherit  the  earth ;  but  I  say.  Blessed  are  the  valiant,  for  they 
shall  share  Valhalla  with  gods  and  heroes.”  There  is  strength 
still  in  the  conviction  that  the  mighty  man  ought  to  have  the 
earth,  and  is  surest  to  get  it;  that  the  way  to  win  what  is 
worth  having  is  to  be  strong  and  go  out  and  take  what  you 
want.  Among  nations  and  individuals  the  faith  in  might 


II 


persists.  Of  course  we  have  learned  courtesy  and  fairness 
and  much  kindliness  as  the  ages  have  gone  on;  but  after  all 
the  supreme  arbiter  must  be  power,  might.  The  ideal  is  to 
be  strong  and  so  to  be  masterful. 

Let  us  not  fall  into  the  error  of  judging  that  the  guilt 
of  following  this  ideal  of  the  mighty  man  rests  on  any 
one  race  or  nation.  Because  the  religion  of  valor,  the  defense 
of  force,  has  found  its  most  skilful  and  relentless  exponents 
in  certain  German  writers,  and  because  so  many  Americans 
are  convinced  that  German  aggression  is  the  real  underlying 
cause  of  the  present  war,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  single  out  that 
one  nation  as  chief  among  sinners  in  the  worship  of  the  idol 
of  force,  forgetting  or  ignoring  the  peace-loving  traits  of 
German  character,  forgetting  also  the  sins  of  other  nations. 
Whatever  we  may  judge  as  individuals,  we  must  not, 
as  a  body  of  Christians,  let  our  judgment  be  directed  against 
any  one  nation ;  and  that  for  two  reasons — the  first  is,  that 
our  business  is  not  to  judge  others,  but  to  submit  our  own 
lives  to  judgment;  the  second  is,  that  if  we  direct  toward  our 
American  Christianity  all  the  condemnation  it  deserves,  we 
shall  have  little  or  none  for  other  people.  Let  us  look 
near  home  and  judge  ourselves,  asking,  Which  is  our  ideal, 
might  or  meekness?  Which  have  we  chosen,  and  which 
do  we  follow,  which  do  we  instil  into  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  our  children,  which  do  we  count  the  truly  success¬ 
ful  man,  the  mighty  or  the  meek,  the  king  or  the  servant,  the 
man  who  dominates  others  by  his  power,  or  the  man  who 
puts  his  strength  into  humble  helpfulness? 

It  is  a  serious  question.  We  are  all  too  apt  to  deceive 
ourselves.  Professing  to  follow  Jesus,  we  hold  in  our  hearts 
a  painfully  incongruous  ideal.  We  want  our  children  to  be 
like  Jesus,  but  we  want  them  also  to  be  rich  and  famous,  and 
to  be  served  by  others.  Cut  deep  into  the  heart  of  many  a 
professing  Christian  until  you  have  found  his  ideal  and 
brought  it  to  the  light ;  and  there  you  see  a  strange  compound, 
with  the  face  of  Jesus,  but  with  the  mind  of  Napoleon,  an 
ideal  in  which  the  meekness  is  manner,  but  the  might  is 


12 


secret  master.  How  many  of  us  actually  want  ourselves  and 
our  children  to  be,  as  nearly  as  possible,  what  Jesus  really 
was?  That  is  a  question  we  must  let  sink  into  the  heart 
slowly,  to  stay  there  for  many  days  and  years,  till  the  pain 
of  it  shall  drive  us  to  the  Great  Physician.  Far  be  it  from 
me  or  from  any  one  man  to  stand  and  judge  others.  We  are 
all  in  the  Confessional.  For  it  is  not  true  that  Protestant 
Churches  have  no  confessional.  They  have  a  harder  one  to 
face  than  is  found  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  For  we 
know  well  that  we  are  continually  under  obligation  to  tell 
the  truth  about  ourselves  to  the  Son  of  Man,  and  hear  what 
He  says  to  us  about  our  failures. 

If  we  begin  to  look  at  present  life  with  the  “eyes  of  the 
glory  of  God,”  must  we  not  admit  that  the  mighty  man  still 
bulks  large  in  our  ideal  as  compared  with  the  Servant?  We 
are  men  of  the  cross;  but  it  is  too  often  a  cross  made  of  two 
sharp  blades  of  steel,  or  two  heavy  cannon,  or  two  bars  of 
gold,  to  be  worn  as  a  decoration,  or  used  to  batter  or  buy 
our  way. 

There  is  need  just  now  that  Christians  in  America  should 
do  all  that  in  them  lies  to  see  that  this  country  stands  before 
the  world  committed  to  the  Servant-ideal,  rather  than  to 
the  King-ideal,  to  meekness  rather  than  to  might.  In  his  last 
message  to  Congress  the  President  spoke  words  which  glowed 
with  the  spirit  we  should  feel  and  show.  We  may  differ 
as  to  his  policies,  we  may  disagree  as  to  the  need  of  inquiry 
into  the  efficiency  of  our  military  and  naval  defences;  good 
citizens  and  true  Christians  do  differ  as  to  these  matters. 
But  on  the  supreme  issue  we  must  be  one  with  him,  in  hold¬ 
ing  that,  above  all,  America  must  just  now  manifest  moral 
might,  must  proclaim  and  defend  her  ideals  of  friendship 
and  peace,  and  must  jealously  hold  aloof  from  anything,  how¬ 
ever  innocent,  which  might  jeopardize  her  reputation  for 
friendliness  and  confidence  toward  other  nations,  and  her 
desire  to  act  as  peacemaker  when  the  time  comes.  Those 
are  right  who  insist  that,  if  we  are  to  have  an  army  and  navy, 
these  departments  of  government  should  be  kept  efficient 


13 


and  strong,  as  all  departments  of  government  should  be.  But 
the  supreme  need  just  now,  to  which  all  other  desires  and 
aims  must  yield,  is  that  the  national  spirit  and  conscience 
should  be  set  and  kept  in  order  for  the  great  task  of  peace 
making  in  which  America  will  have  the  opportunity  to  play 
a  great  part. 

But  even  more  than  upon  our  consciences  as  Americans 
would  I  press  upon  our  consciences  as  Christians  the  obliga¬ 
tion  to  follow  our  Master  in  choosing  the  ideal  of  meekness 
rather  than  of  might,  and  of  being  loyal  unto  death  to  that 
choice.  Not  the  meekness  which  means  weakness,  cowardice, 
tame  willingness  to  submit  and  be  ruled.  The  Hero  of  the 
Cross  never  calls  His  followers  to  such  a  spirit.  To  be 
truly  meek,  as  the  Bible  uses  the  word,  as  Christ  was  meek, 
is  a  hard,  and  bold,  and  heroic  thing.  The  choice  to  which 
Christ  calls  us  is  to  have  such  faith  in  the  supremacy  of 
spirit  over  force  that  we  shall  go  unarmed  and  unafraid 
against  the  might  of  evil,  and  know  that,  though  the  way 
lead  to  a  cross,  it  leads  at  last  to  victory. 

When  the  war  broke  out,  a  band  of  strong  young  men 
in  England  were  sorely  perplexed.  They  belonged  to  a  religious 
body  which  believes  that  war  is  always  wrong.  Yet  they 
could  not  endure  to  stay  at  home,  while  their  friends  were 
giving  up  their  lives.  At  last  they  organized,  sixty  or  more, 
for  volunteer  relief  service  at  the  front.  They  refused  to 
carry  arms.  But  there  they  are,  at  the  front,  exposed  to 
death  as  are  the  fighting  men,  helping  the  wounded,  showing 
kindness,  risking  their  lives ;  but  definitely  committed  to  the 
ideal  of  the  servant,  not  to  that  of  the  warrior. 

That  is  an  extreme  case;  but  it  is  one  of  beauty  and 
power.  It  is  witness-bearing  in  the  very  face  of  the  devil  and 
his  hosts.  What  the  world  needs  is  more  Christians  who  shall 
make  the  great  choice  which  Jesus  made,  resolving  at  any 
cost  to  follow  loyally,  in  their  business,  in  their  hopes  and 
dreams,  in  their  influence  all  through  their  life,  the  ideal 
of  the  servant  rather  than  that  of  the  mighty  man.  When 
the  world,  out  of  its  actual  experience,  learns  to  define  a 


14 


Christian  as  one  committed  to  the  ideal  of  humble,  self-sac¬ 
rificing  service,  then  the  world  will  reverence  the  Christian 
church  and  its  Master. 

The  saddest  scene  in  religious  history  is  that  in  which 
we  see  the  Jewish  people,  under  the  leadership  of  their 
rulers,  face  to  face  with  the  King  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
and  crying  out,  “We  have  no  king  but  Cjesar.”  Heirs  of 
the  promises  and  prophecies,  committed  to  a  Messianic  hope 
which  was  the  hope  of  the  whole  world,  they  turned  from  the 
very  One  Who  had  come  to  make  those  prophecies  into 
facts,  and  chose  the  incarnation  of  the  ungodlike.  Jesus 
had  chosen  to  be  the  Servant,  not  the  King;  and  they  could 
not  choose  with  Him.  The  glamour  of  might,  of  force,  of 
dominant  power  dazzled  them  and  they  denied  the  hope 

for  which  their  fathers  had  longed  and  laid  down  their 
lives. 


God  keep  His  church,  this  nation,  the  Christians  of  this 
age,  from  any  such  choice  as  that.  Caesar  is  still  mighty 
force  still  dazzles  and  appeals.  We  want  to  be  great  and 
powerful,  and  might  seems  to  be  the  secret  of  what  we  want. 
God  keep  us  from  that  awful  confession  of  failure,  “We 
have  no  king  but  Caesar.”  May  we,  not  only  in  word  and 
song,  but  in  deed  and  truth,  crown  as  Lord  of  all  the  meek 
and  lowly  Son  of  Man,  the  great  Servant  and  Friend,  whose 
way  was  the  way  of  the  Cross.  In  the  crisis  which  is  upon  us 
to-aay,  when  war  shakes  the  earth,  and  religious  values  are 
dim.med  and  confused,  and  might  seems  to  stalk  on  its  way 
crushing  beneath  its  feet  the  forces  of  peace  and  justice  and 
the  Chnst-spint,  there  is  one  great  word  which  might  well 
be  made  the  motto  of  the  Christian  church,  of  Christian 
nations,  of  Christians  everywhere,  an  inscription  to  keep  fly¬ 
ing  on  our  banners,  a  word  we  cannot  hear  too  often  or 
heed  too  fully,  “Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit 
saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts.”  ^  y  > 


iS 


The  Church  Peace  Union 

(,Founded  by  Andrew  Carnegie) 

TRUSTEES 

Rev.  Peter  Ainslie,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Rev.  Arthur  Judson  Brown,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  Francis  E.  Clark,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Boston,  Mass. 
President  W.  H.  P.  Faunce,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Providence,  R.  I. 
His  Eminence,  James  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Rt.  Rev.  David  H.  Greer,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York 
Rev.  Frank  O.  Hall,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Bishop  E.  R.  Hendrix,  D.D.,  Kansas  City,  Mo. 

Rabbi  Emil  G.  Hirsch,  LL.D.,  Chicago,  Ill. 

Hamilton  Holt,  LL.D.,  New  York 

Professor  William  I.  Hull,  Ph.D.,  Swarthmore,  Pa. 

Rev.  Charles  E.  Jefferson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones,  LL.D.,  Chicago,  Ill. 

Rt.  Rev.  William  Lawrence,  D.D.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Rev.  Frederick  Lynch,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  Charles  S.  Macfarland,  Ph.D.,  New  York. 

Marcus  M.  Marks,  New  York 

Dean  Shailer  Mathews,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Chicago,  III 

Edwin  D.  Mead,  M.A.,  Boston,  Mass. 

Rev.  William  Pierson  Merrill,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
John  R.  Mott,  LL.D.,  New  York, 

George  A.  Plimpton,  LL.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  Julius  B.  Remensnyder,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Judge  Henry  Wade  Rogers,  LL.D.,  New  York. 

Robert  E.  Speer,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Francis  Lynde  Stetson,  New  York. 

James  J.  Walsh,  M.D.,  New  York. 

Bishop  Luther  B.  Wilson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 


